Both have cover flow - it's a heck of a lot easier to use coverflow on the iPhone than on the Mac - i.e. you don't need to hit a scroll bar with a mouse to start moving through the list, you just flip through with your finger. And after nearly a year of using an iPhone, I have yet to wish I could hook a mouse up to it.
Both have safari - one works with mouse and keyboard, the other works with multi-touch. Both UIs work quite well. And again, it would certainly be easier to scroll safari on the mac if you could just flip it with your finger instead of having to hit the scroll bar with the mouse to get started.
Don't you have scroll wheel in your mouse? You most certainly don't have to grab scroll bars to make either of these functions to work. And if you use notebook, every notebook since G3 lineup has had two finger scrolling, whitch is very intuitive and usable.
Don't you have scroll wheel in your mouse? You most certainly don't have to grab scroll bars to make either of these functions to work. And if you use notebook, every notebook since G3 lineup has had two finger scrolling, whitch is very intuitive and usable.
I believe two finger scrolling first became available on the last revision of the powerbook, just before the intel transistion.
What apple did with the iphone was to test the waters with multi touch and now that it is a proven technology, all we have to do is wait for them to make the screen larger and the device more powerful for us to see a desktop. Not only that, but I feel that apple has in store a laptop which does someting with touch that goes beyond what the widows 7 demo has shown us: I'm thinking that apple will elminate the keyboard and decide to use a multi touch screen on the bortom of the laptop and keep the current top screen: They will offer the best of two worlds like the Nintendo DS has done (just an example). And by allowing the bottom screen to be controlled in such a way makes the sky the limit for what you can do with the laptop:
you could have the top screen flip around in a way that you can turn the computer into a tablet at any moment, you could have a standard keyboard be the bottom screen, you coulld have all the tools for photoshop be accessed by a touch of the finger on the bottom screen, you could have safari pages that span two screens at once, You could have a version of WOW that has custom controls set to the bottom screen that allows for access to spells at the touch of a finger, as well as movement, and have a chat keyboard pop up whenever you need to chat, as well as put some user defined buttons be placed on the large bottom screen
Heck, The bottom screen could elminate the need for a mouse or trackpad if used correctly.
This is the type of direction that I see apple moving towards. While Microsoft is stuck with a single screen and limited multi touch controls, apple will be alowing for two screens and the developer to add their own controls the way they feel the application would work best.
Don't you have scroll wheel in your mouse? You most certainly don't have to grab scroll bars to make either of these functions to work. And if you use notebook, every notebook since G3 lineup has had two finger scrolling, whitch is very intuitive and usable.
No scroll-wheel on my trackball, and it doesn't really change the point I was trying to make - that there are times direct manipulation is going to just work better. Take the coverflow example, once you scroll, you likely want to open the the thing you just scrolled to. If you use a scrollwheel, you likely don't know quite where the mouse cursor is, you have to find it and move it to the thing you want to open. The way it works on the iPhone, your finger is already where you need it once you scroll to the thing you were looking for.
Perhaps a better example - it's easier to have your hand touch a link to go to another web page than it is to have your hand grab a mouse, move it enough to see the cursor, move that cursor to the link and click.
Another example, you're working on an image with an editing tool and want to zoom up on your work. Wouldn't it be easier to just pinch zoom than to have to go select a magnifying glass tool, do your zoom, then go back and reselect the tool you were using with the mouse?
Let multi-touch supplement the mouse the same way the mouse supplements the keyboard. Get a desktop implementation that's as well thought out as the iPhone UI before you decide it's useless in a desktop environment.
A trackball eh? I prefer my trackpad, it's much easier to go between the keyboard (my primary input method), and the trackpad (that input method that gets used whenever there's not a keyboard shortcut or not one that I know yet). Anyway, that aside, the problems you are describing of not knowing where the cursor is simply don't exist, that thing that's moving? That's the cursor whenever you move your mouse/trackball/trackpad and there is no need to hunt that down before you even touch your mouse/trackball/trackpad.
And on the contrary, it is much more precise for me to be able to point to a link via a proxy (through my trackpad) which is smaller than my finger to click a link than it is for me to reach out and touch the link on my screen, particularly since the environment I'm working in was designed for a mouse cursor to begin with and the buttons, links, and menus are designed and sized exactly for that.
Sebastian
I'm typing right now - the mouse is not visible on the screen because the OS has properly obscured it. It doesn't become visible until I move the mouse slightly. If I've been typing for a while, I won't remember where I last left it, so don't know until I move it slightly if the button I want to press is to the left, right or directly below the mouse. I'm on a mac pro with dual displays, one 30 inches, one 24 inches. There are times I don't know what screen my mouse is on, much less where on the screen it is. It takes a small movement for the on screen mouse to become visible, and perhaps a bit more movement to have it move enough to see. In the time it takes to lift my hand off of the keyboard and grab the trackball, I could have instead reached that same hand off of the keyboard and touched the "submit reply" button. Both the trackball and the button are roughly the same distance from my hand, there is no having to look for the on screen mouse to move it to the button, I could just touch the button. Just because it's become so routine that you don't notice it doesn't mean that there's not extra time involved.
And buttons and links aren't designed precisely to be easy to hit with a mouse. Quite the contrary, the only thing on the screen that is designed to be easy to hit with the mouse it the main menu bar and the dock, which take advantage of being on the edge of the screen to give them effectively infinite height, thus making them easy to hit. Buttons and links on the screen are designed to look nice. And the smaller they are, the more time it takes to mouse over them.
Again, I'm suggesting that a touch/multitouch screen be a supplement for the mouse, not a replacement. Just as you have the option of typing command-x to cut instead of using the mouse to select the cut menu, you could have the option of touching a button instead of moving the mouse over it and clicking.
And, again, you have to look no further than the iPhone to see that a well thought out touch screen interface can certainly work quite well.
Well done Microsoft, you're keeping up your consistency with being behind the times as usual. All I saw there was a demonstration of what Apple brought to market over 1 year ago, but by the looks of it, in a really awkward and buggy way. Disgraceful, but typical Microsoft shit. If they didn't have their OS monopoly from early on, this company would be dust long ago.
And besides, I really don't think this multi touch interface has much presense in the desktop market. In some specific niche situations, sure. But with the drop in prices for LCD screens, it's not going to be long before 30" screens are standard. Who the hell sits close enough to their 30" screen to be touching it all the time? Not to mention getting it all smudged up.
In her demonstration, almost every task she did seemed awkward. The only one that seemed remotely natural was the maps application, but I'd still rather use a mouse to do that, rather than having to move my arm towards the screen. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a useful thing to have, but it's no revolution like the iPhone was, it's just a rehash but done in a less impressive way. Again, Microsoft being consistent.
Where multitouch is good is on small devices where there is no mouse or keyboard and you've got the device in your hand anyway.
Ever notice when they demo multi-touch on big screens, it's always doing something stupid? They're just fooling around, not really being practical and productive. I agree that on a vertical surface it's just plain dumb, except for kiosks. It belongs on portables and keyboards, NOT monitors. Typical MS. They just don't get it.
I bet Ballmer was cringing at the iphone references. I guess the fact that the screen is so unresponsive would at least assure him it's not really like the iphone.
Did they expect people to be impressed with the map thing? I don't even know why they would demo that on a computer. So what if you can get directions, what good is it to you when you walk out the door?
The iphone has these maps in your pocket as you go to where you need to go.
The painting application was horrendous. I get better output than that from current touch displays. The only advantage here is that you can make multiple unrecognizable squiggles at once.
In a way I wish their demo had been better so that Apple had something to worry about and start the desktop touch movement but this is not even competitive with current products.
Instead of fingering Google Maps (when MS wants to buy Yahoo) and giving away the fact that they are going to steal the Dock from OS X, she should have shown what a marvelous improvement multi-touch will be for those that enjoy porn on their big 30" LCDs.
Just imagine interactive, near-real-life, fleshy responses to pinching, circles, spreading, poking, sliding, scraping, using 2 fingers, 3, 4, 5...
Then, in Steve Jobs style, they could have announced ONE MORE THING, which would have been a screen you can use your tongue on.
All kidding aside, what a waste of time. A girl back in college touched my NeXT Monitor with her orange cheetos finger and I've never forgotten her.
From an ergonomics standpoint, has MS done the math on how many trillions of miles all this movement is going to add to our work lives? I can accomplish much of what I saw by moving my mouse half and inch and scrolling.
Okay, I see where they're going with that. I think Microsoft's technology for implementing it is fundamentally flawed though. And I suspect OS X Version 6 Cougar or whatever they call it will beat it to market with a better implementation (Drawing on Apple's existing Multi-Touch technology and associated patents, first in an iMac, then in keyboards, notebooks and displays.
In other commentary, they're copying the Dock. How backward is that? The Dock was Apple's answer to user's calls for something like (But not) a taskbar. Now Microsoft, whose dull thinking concocted the taskbar, is copying the Dock.
Oh well, whatever makes Windows more bearable I suppose.
I'm thinking that apple will elminate the keyboard and decide to use a multi touch screen on the bortom of the laptop and keep the current top screen: They will offer the best of two worlds like the Nintendo DS has done (just an example). .
last week was the first time in ages that I went back from my macbook to my desktop computer to type something and I couldn't believe how much smoother and faster I could type there than on the macbook.
"eliminate the keyboard" I think not. to have your fingers feel the sides of the keys makes everything so much smoother, no accidental wrong letter inputs, like on the iphone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alandail
Another example, you're working on an image with an editing tool and want to zoom up on your work. Wouldn't it be easier to just pinch zoom than to have to go select a magnifying glass tool, do your zoom, then go back and reselect the tool you were using with the mouse?
oh what a bunch of horse cr*p!
people who work with any imaging software will have learned the keyboard shortcuts:
to zoom the pic you're working on in photoshop is: command&+ or command&-
this works way faster than either mouse input or multi-touch pinching (which will also rotate your picture: BLEH!)
and like another comment said: how many people don't know how to use command&C and command&V for copy and paste???
Comments
Imagine a virus being able to steal your fingerprints or give you an electric shock, Ladies and Gentlemen...Welcome to Windows 7
Ahhh.... just another example of how Microsoft copies Apple...
"
Mhh.... Hey Bill! Start your iPhotocopier! Look! Apple just released this thing called an iPhone with 'multi-touch features'
oh my gooosh! GROOOOVY! They also released a a MacBook Air and Pro with these features of multi touching!
-- that's amazing! I'll go get my iPhotocopier...
"
Both have cover flow - it's a heck of a lot easier to use coverflow on the iPhone than on the Mac - i.e. you don't need to hit a scroll bar with a mouse to start moving through the list, you just flip through with your finger. And after nearly a year of using an iPhone, I have yet to wish I could hook a mouse up to it.
Both have safari - one works with mouse and keyboard, the other works with multi-touch. Both UIs work quite well. And again, it would certainly be easier to scroll safari on the mac if you could just flip it with your finger instead of having to hit the scroll bar with the mouse to get started.
Don't you have scroll wheel in your mouse? You most certainly don't have to grab scroll bars to make either of these functions to work. And if you use notebook, every notebook since G3 lineup has had two finger scrolling, whitch is very intuitive and usable.
Don't you have scroll wheel in your mouse? You most certainly don't have to grab scroll bars to make either of these functions to work. And if you use notebook, every notebook since G3 lineup has had two finger scrolling, whitch is very intuitive and usable.
I believe two finger scrolling first became available on the last revision of the powerbook, just before the intel transistion.
you could have the top screen flip around in a way that you can turn the computer into a tablet at any moment, you could have a standard keyboard be the bottom screen, you coulld have all the tools for photoshop be accessed by a touch of the finger on the bottom screen, you could have safari pages that span two screens at once, You could have a version of WOW that has custom controls set to the bottom screen that allows for access to spells at the touch of a finger, as well as movement, and have a chat keyboard pop up whenever you need to chat, as well as put some user defined buttons be placed on the large bottom screen
Heck, The bottom screen could elminate the need for a mouse or trackpad if used correctly.
This is the type of direction that I see apple moving towards. While Microsoft is stuck with a single screen and limited multi touch controls, apple will be alowing for two screens and the developer to add their own controls the way they feel the application would work best.
This is just a thought.
When MS starts hyping a feature you know it's become passe.
The race to make a fully multi-touch desktop is absolutely absurd. Geez thanks
you've turned my computer into a Kiosk. I'm impressed.
Dumb, but funny
It's an option. You can use it or not. I'd at least like to have the option.
Begun the Touch Wars have between Microsoft and Apple. Survive only one will.
Enjoy a little Jedi reference late night I do...
Don't you have scroll wheel in your mouse? You most certainly don't have to grab scroll bars to make either of these functions to work. And if you use notebook, every notebook since G3 lineup has had two finger scrolling, whitch is very intuitive and usable.
No scroll-wheel on my trackball, and it doesn't really change the point I was trying to make - that there are times direct manipulation is going to just work better. Take the coverflow example, once you scroll, you likely want to open the the thing you just scrolled to. If you use a scrollwheel, you likely don't know quite where the mouse cursor is, you have to find it and move it to the thing you want to open. The way it works on the iPhone, your finger is already where you need it once you scroll to the thing you were looking for.
Perhaps a better example - it's easier to have your hand touch a link to go to another web page than it is to have your hand grab a mouse, move it enough to see the cursor, move that cursor to the link and click.
Another example, you're working on an image with an editing tool and want to zoom up on your work. Wouldn't it be easier to just pinch zoom than to have to go select a magnifying glass tool, do your zoom, then go back and reselect the tool you were using with the mouse?
Let multi-touch supplement the mouse the same way the mouse supplements the keyboard. Get a desktop implementation that's as well thought out as the iPhone UI before you decide it's useless in a desktop environment.
I believe two finger scrolling first became available on the last revision of the powerbook, just before the intel transistion.
Official support maybe, but the machines have had the ability long before that. See: iScroll2, works perfectly
A trackball eh? I prefer my trackpad, it's much easier to go between the keyboard (my primary input method), and the trackpad (that input method that gets used whenever there's not a keyboard shortcut or not one that I know yet). Anyway, that aside, the problems you are describing of not knowing where the cursor is simply don't exist, that thing that's moving? That's the cursor whenever you move your mouse/trackball/trackpad and there is no need to hunt that down before you even touch your mouse/trackball/trackpad.
And on the contrary, it is much more precise for me to be able to point to a link via a proxy (through my trackpad) which is smaller than my finger to click a link than it is for me to reach out and touch the link on my screen, particularly since the environment I'm working in was designed for a mouse cursor to begin with and the buttons, links, and menus are designed and sized exactly for that.
Sebastian
I'm typing right now - the mouse is not visible on the screen because the OS has properly obscured it. It doesn't become visible until I move the mouse slightly. If I've been typing for a while, I won't remember where I last left it, so don't know until I move it slightly if the button I want to press is to the left, right or directly below the mouse. I'm on a mac pro with dual displays, one 30 inches, one 24 inches. There are times I don't know what screen my mouse is on, much less where on the screen it is. It takes a small movement for the on screen mouse to become visible, and perhaps a bit more movement to have it move enough to see. In the time it takes to lift my hand off of the keyboard and grab the trackball, I could have instead reached that same hand off of the keyboard and touched the "submit reply" button. Both the trackball and the button are roughly the same distance from my hand, there is no having to look for the on screen mouse to move it to the button, I could just touch the button. Just because it's become so routine that you don't notice it doesn't mean that there's not extra time involved.
And buttons and links aren't designed precisely to be easy to hit with a mouse. Quite the contrary, the only thing on the screen that is designed to be easy to hit with the mouse it the main menu bar and the dock, which take advantage of being on the edge of the screen to give them effectively infinite height, thus making them easy to hit. Buttons and links on the screen are designed to look nice. And the smaller they are, the more time it takes to mouse over them.
Again, I'm suggesting that a touch/multitouch screen be a supplement for the mouse, not a replacement. Just as you have the option of typing command-x to cut instead of using the mouse to select the cut menu, you could have the option of touching a button instead of moving the mouse over it and clicking.
And, again, you have to look no further than the iPhone to see that a well thought out touch screen interface can certainly work quite well.
And besides, I really don't think this multi touch interface has much presense in the desktop market. In some specific niche situations, sure. But with the drop in prices for LCD screens, it's not going to be long before 30" screens are standard. Who the hell sits close enough to their 30" screen to be touching it all the time? Not to mention getting it all smudged up.
In her demonstration, almost every task she did seemed awkward. The only one that seemed remotely natural was the maps application, but I'd still rather use a mouse to do that, rather than having to move my arm towards the screen. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a useful thing to have, but it's no revolution like the iPhone was, it's just a rehash but done in a less impressive way. Again, Microsoft being consistent.
Where multitouch is good is on small devices where there is no mouse or keyboard and you've got the device in your hand anyway.
Did they expect people to be impressed with the map thing? I don't even know why they would demo that on a computer. So what if you can get directions, what good is it to you when you walk out the door?
The iphone has these maps in your pocket as you go to where you need to go.
The painting application was horrendous. I get better output than that from current touch displays. The only advantage here is that you can make multiple unrecognizable squiggles at once.
In a way I wish their demo had been better so that Apple had something to worry about and start the desktop touch movement but this is not even competitive with current products.
Just imagine interactive, near-real-life, fleshy responses to pinching, circles, spreading, poking, sliding, scraping, using 2 fingers, 3, 4, 5...
Then, in Steve Jobs style, they could have announced ONE MORE THING, which would have been a screen you can use your tongue on.
All kidding aside, what a waste of time. A girl back in college touched my NeXT Monitor with her orange cheetos finger and I've never forgotten her.
From an ergonomics standpoint, has MS done the math on how many trillions of miles all this movement is going to add to our work lives? I can accomplish much of what I saw by moving my mouse half and inch and scrolling.
In other commentary, they're copying the Dock. How backward is that? The Dock was Apple's answer to user's calls for something like (But not) a taskbar. Now Microsoft, whose dull thinking concocted the taskbar, is copying the Dock.
Oh well, whatever makes Windows more bearable I suppose.
For me, I believe that Apple will be looking into 3D for the next OS - its all about the user experience.....
I'm thinking that apple will elminate the keyboard and decide to use a multi touch screen on the bortom of the laptop and keep the current top screen: They will offer the best of two worlds like the Nintendo DS has done (just an example). .
last week was the first time in ages that I went back from my macbook to my desktop computer to type something and I couldn't believe how much smoother and faster I could type there than on the macbook.
"eliminate the keyboard" I think not. to have your fingers feel the sides of the keys makes everything so much smoother, no accidental wrong letter inputs, like on the iphone.
Another example, you're working on an image with an editing tool and want to zoom up on your work. Wouldn't it be easier to just pinch zoom than to have to go select a magnifying glass tool, do your zoom, then go back and reselect the tool you were using with the mouse?
oh what a bunch of horse cr*p!
people who work with any imaging software will have learned the keyboard shortcuts:
to zoom the pic you're working on in photoshop is: command&+ or command&-
this works way faster than either mouse input or multi-touch pinching (which will also rotate your picture: BLEH!)
and like another comment said: how many people don't know how to use command&C and command&V for copy and paste???
Don't you have scroll wheel in your mouse?
I have a Mighty Mouse! It has a Scroll Ball! Which is always stuck with gunk. Effective result = no scroll wheel.